Heyman: The Twins made a 3-year offer to Ervin Santana

[tobi0040]

But you can't have your cake and eat it too. Corriea and Pelfrey are under contract. There is zero chance Pelfrey gets dealt until July at the absolute earliest and a very minimal chance Corriea does before the same point. They are on the roster, we can't pretend otherwise, and it's an important part of the equation. (Especially for a team that has consistently favored veterans over prospects regardless of talent)

 

If you want to argue Santana >>>>> Correia/Pelfrey - you'll get no argument from most and certainly none from me. The decision to add someone like Santana does have to factor in their presence and the way the team is likely to treat them. This isn't a video game where you just cut or trade people willy-nilly and stash people wherever you want.

 

It's better for this team to target a Santana-like player next year when they've gotten rid of one of these uninspiring "innings eaters". If you are hard pressed to spend money now - do it on offense because right now I'd be shocked if this team wasn't last in the AL by a country mile with this group

 

We could trade KC right now if we wanted to. The Blue Jays and Orioles are looking for pitching. Other teams will have injuries before April 1st. A team like the Yankees or Dodgers would be okay with a 4.50 career ERA guy coming off 4.19 last year as their long reliever. He is only going to make $5M next year.

 

Santana is a 15.7 WAR player over 9 seasons. KC is a 5 WAR player over 11. Seems like an additional $7M in payroll makes sense ($12M - $5M)

[Guest USAFChief]

I've been around long enough to see inferior veterans block superior prospects a lot. Managers tend to prefer veterans because they're low maintenance.

I dont think superior players actually get blocked very often, but if they do that's a manager problem, not a player problem. And even in that case, you're still better off having more players than positions than having more positions than players.

[Mike Sixel]

They could have just cut KC....they basically did that with Blackburn. Not saying I would expect that, but he should not have blocked bringing in a better player.

 

We have no idea what they offered, or didn't. All we know is what he took, and that they PROBABLY, did not offer more.

[howieramone1406390264]

I dont think superior players actually get blocked very often, but if they do that's a manager problem, not a player problem. And even in that case, you're still better off having more players than positions than having more positions than players.

 

I just e-mailed Seth that one of the TOP 2014 Stories should be on blocking. He responded in a language I don't understand.

[Mike Sixel]

And tackling, howie, can't forget the defense......

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

I love the blocking debate but you remember Doumit had 100+ starts last year..

[TheLeviathan]

We could trade KC right now if we wanted to.

 

A) That sets aside any assurances we gave to him and Assumes those teams would want him. These are assumptions. As of now, if they had signed him, it would've pushed Gibson one deeper from a starting spot. That's just a fact and it should be part of the consideration.

 

Subtracting players via trade is not a given and shouldn't be treated that way.

[diehardtwinsfan]

We could trade KC right now if we wanted to. The Blue Jays and Orioles are looking for pitching. Other teams will have injuries before April 1st. A team like the Yankees or Dodgers would be okay with a 4.50 career ERA guy coming off 4.19 last year as their long reliever. He is only going to make $5M next year.

 

Santana is a 15.7 WAR player over 9 seasons. KC is a 5 WAR player over 11. Seems like an additional $7M in payroll makes sense ($12M - $5M)

 

The O's dont' have tons of money, but the Jays aren't exactly cash strapped... and yet they didn't sign Santana. Why would they give up something of value for KC?

 

I think Levi is right here. Pelfrey won't go at the deadline and KC won't go until then.

[Mike Sixel]

Or, you could just cut KC, which is what they basically did with Blackburn. If you think Santana is better.....and Gibson is better, why not just cut him?

[TheLeviathan]

Or, you could just cut KC, which is what they basically did with Blackburn. If you think Santana is better.....and Gibson is better, why not just cut him?

 

Again though, you can't say a move is a good idea based on a premise completely derived from your own feelings about what the Twins should do. It can only be based on what the Twins would actually do. The Twins, after the year Correia had, have ZERO realistic interest in just cutting KC. That's not going to happen and it's a really unfair premise that completely muddies the argument.

 

Again, this team has too many commitments in their rotation right now to add another one and still expect it won't cut playing time/opportunity from Gibson/Worley/Meyer. It will. I personally, would rather not do that. If you disagree with that, that's one thing. But to prop up your argument based on a bunch of stuff that will not happen? That's not dealing with the situation fairly or reasonably.

[Guest USAFChief]

Again though, you can't say a move is a good idea based on a premise completely derived from your own feelings about what the Twins should do. It can only be based on what the Twins would actually do. The Twins, after the year Correia had, have ZERO realistic interest in just cutting KC. That's not going to happen and it's a really unfair premise that completely muddies the argument.

 

Again, this team has too many commitments in their rotation right now to add another one and still expect it won't cut playing time/opportunity from Gibson/Worley/Meyer. It will. I personally, would rather not do that. If you disagree with that, that's one thing. But to prop up your argument based on a bunch of stuff that will not happen? That's not dealing with the situation fairly or reasonably.

Well, they did eat Blackburn's salary, so there is at least a small data point showing they might be willing to do that in the future.

 

Of more interest to me is the assumption that Worley, Gibson and/or Meyer represent better options. I see little evidence any of them should be assumed to be, particularly in April 2014. And if any of them prove to be at some point in the future, I think it's easier to deal with that problem if/when it arises than to hold off on better options now. I think that's true for position players and pitchers, but particularly true for pitchers. You need five starters, for example, so I would feel relatively safe in assuming they will get their opportunity if they earn it.

 

I do agree with you that If the Twins are going to add free agents, I'd rather they add offense. But if the choice was Santana or nothing, well, give me Santana.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Or, you could just cut KC, which is what they basically did with Blackburn. If you think Santana is better.....and Gibson is better, why not just cut him?

 

I can give you 5 million reasons why they won't cut him.... those same reasons existed with Blackburn, and even then he was given his release with only a few months to go. They could DFA him, but he can refuse assignment and instantly become a free agent. I understand that 5M is little to a baseball team, but it's still a huge amount of money. Throwing millions away is never a good way to run a business.... and in KCs defense, the signing was not a bad one. It isn't like Nishi where he's clearly a sunk cost.

[TheLeviathan]

Well, they did eat Blackburn's salary, so there is at least a small data point showing they might be willing to do that in the future.

 

Nothing other than the "eating salary" part is a relevant comparison. Correia is coming off a decent season whereas Blackburn was vomit-inducing for almost an entire season and couldn't even pull it together in the minor leagues.

 

Worley/Gibson/Meyer may not be better, but we'll never know without them receiving opportunities. And the reason you don't make it any more difficult for them to get chances is because Meyer and Gibson represent tremendously more value because of the potential of translating their talent to dirt cheap wins. That fills holes for no cost rather than piling on middling players at exponentionly higher costs. It's a poor allocation of funds.

 

And, again to put this in perspective, as of right now Meyer and Gibson are behind no less than Nolasco, Correia, Pelfrey, Hughes, Worley, Diamond, Deduno, and probably Johnson.

 

I think that's a long enough line already. You want to complain about giving 2 or 3 year deals to some of that line instead of Santana? Yeah, I'm with you. But what's done is done.

[cmathewson]

Well, they did eat Blackburn's salary, so there is at least a small data point showing they might be willing to do that in the future.

 

Of more interest to me is the assumption that Worley, Gibson and/or Meyer represent better options. I see little evidence any of them should be assumed to be, particularly in April 2014. And if any of them prove to be at some point in the future, I think it's easier to deal with that problem if/when it arises than to hold off on better options now. I think that's true for position players and pitchers, but particularly true for pitchers. You need five starters, for example, so I would feel relatively safe in assuming they will get their opportunity if they earn it.

 

I do agree with you that If the Twins are going to add free agents, I'd rather they add offense. But if the choice was Santana or nothing, well, give me Santana.

 

The hardest jump in development is to the majors. Most players take their lumps when they first come up. So they are almost invariably worse than a cheap veteran free agent at first. But unlike the cheap veteran, they have upside. So a team needs to make the uncomfortable decision to get worse at that position before it can get better. Because this decision is uncomfortable, it is often delayed to the point where the developing player is just biding his time. The more oldsters you have around, the longer it delays the inevitable for the youngsters. This might make sense for a contending team, but not for a rebuilding team.

 

That's the theory anyway. Our opinions differ on how prevalent it is in practice. What I am concerned about is how likely it is for this franchise this year. I think the impulse to keep e.g. Correia in the rotation while Gibson bides his time in AAA is very strong. For how long? Consider if they get off to a hot start. It might go half the year or more, limping along with five-inning, three-run starts while Gibson dominates and waits. It does the team no good when it really matters, in 2015.

[Guest USAFChief]

Nothing other than the "eating salary" part is a relevant comparison. Correia is coming off a decent season whereas Blackburn was vomit-inducing for almost an entire season and couldn't even pull it together in the minor leagues.

 

Worley/Gibson/Meyer may not be better, but we'll never know without them receiving opportunities. And the reason you don't make it any more difficult for them to get chances is because Meyer and Gibson represent tremendously more value because of the potential of translating their talent to dirt cheap wins. That fills holes for no cost rather than piling on middling players at exponentionly higher costs. It's a poor allocation of funds.

 

And, again to put this in perspective, as of right now Meyer and Gibson are behind no less than Nolasco, Correia, Pelfrey, Hughes, Worley, Diamond, Deduno, and probably Johnson.

 

I think that's a long enough line already. You want to complain about giving 2 or 3 year deals to some of that line instead of Santana? Yeah, I'm with you. But what's done is done.

 

Worley has received opportunities. So has Gibson, for that matter. If they can't beat out Diamond, Deduno, and Johnson (who also represent the possibility of "dirt cheap wins", BTW) then I'm not terribly concerned about additional immediate opportunities.

 

As for Meyer, he probably was ticketed for the minors to start 2014 no matter who is in the roster, and I'm confident he'll get his opportunity in time as well. And if he dominates in the minors but there are five guys in Minneapolis pitching too well to lose their spot...I view that as a positive.

[cmathewson]

Worley has received opportunities. So has Gibson, for that matter. If they can't beat out Diamond, Deduno, and Johnson (who also represent the possibility of "dirt cheap wins", BTW) then I'm not terribly concerned about additional immediate opportunities.

 

As for Meyer, he probably was ticketed for the minors to start 2014 no matter who is in the roster, and I'm confident he'll get his opportunity in time as well. And if he dominates in the minors but there are five guys in Minneapolis pitching too well to lose their spot...I view that as a positive.

 

The premise is not that Gibson would need to beat those players out (which he should do without too much trouble), it is beating out Correia in a rotation of Nolasco, Santana, Hughes, Pelfrey and Correia. Take away Santana, and it's likely Deduno, who's arm could fall off tomorrow, giving Gibson his opportunity. But that wasn't the premise of this thread--whether it is a good idea to hire another veteran and block Gibson (and ultimately Meyer, if that veteran is hired for the longer term).

[TheLeviathan]

Worley has received opportunities. So has Gibson, for that matter. If they can't beat out Diamond, Deduno, and Johnson (who also represent the possibility of "dirt cheap wins", BTW) then I'm not terribly concerned about additional immediate opportunities.

 

The problem with your perspective is that you treat "beat out" as if it's some kind of automatic thing where the spot is handed over the instant that would be appropriate. Things don't work that way. They especially don't work that way with the Twins and veteran players.

 

In addition, "Too well" for the Twins is often not the threshold you and I would hold them to. Nor a clear distinction to make even for an objective person. Meyer and Gibson represent more upside and significantly less resources than anyone on the list in front of them. For a young team, that's worth investing in and you can't invest in that without starts to give them.

 

I understand where you disagree and reasonably people could. What I don't think is reasonable is to throw around completely unrealistic scenarios to dismiss a valid concern. Correia and Pelfrey are signed and here until at least July, that's a fact of reality that has to be accepted.

[Oxtung]

...Kyle Gibson, who is more than ready at 27...

 

Minor nit pick, Gibson will only be 26 this whole season.

 

We could trade KC right now if we wanted to. The Blue Jays and Orioles are looking for pitching. Other teams will have injuries before April 1st. A team like the Yankees or Dodgers would be okay with a 4.50 career ERA guy coming off 4.19 last year as their long reliever. He is only going to make $5M next year.

 

I would have liked to have seen Santana signed as well but this is pretty poor logic. You are claiming that Correia is poor enough that the Twins should look to move him but that he is simultaneously valuable enough that the Jays and Orioles, two teams looking to contend this season, would be willing to trade for him?

 

...in KCs defense, the signing was not a bad one. It isn't like Nishi where he's clearly a sunk cost.

 

Actually it was bad signing for exactly the reason we're talking about today. It was for two seasons. We had an opportunity to add an actual above average pitcher and didn't get him. I find it hard to believe that the Twins offer didn't take into account the fact that we had 4 spots in the rotation already locked up with the fifth having plenty of competition. We'll be saying the same thing about Pelfrey next off season.

 

Worley/Gibson/Meyer may not be better, but we'll never know without them receiving opportunities. And the reason you don't make it any more difficult for them to get chances is because Meyer and Gibson represent tremendously more value because of the potential of translating their talent to dirt cheap wins. That fills holes for no cost rather than piling on middling players at exponentionly higher costs. It's a poor allocation of funds.

 

The Twins are $30-50 million dollars below their potential budget. The fact that Gibson, Meyer, Worley, etc... are cheap is irrelevant. They could have signed Santana and still upgraded two positions offensively with good players.

[TheLeviathan]

The Twins are $30-50 million dollars below their potential budget. The fact that Gibson, Meyer, Worley, etc... are cheap is irrelevant. They could have signed Santana and still upgraded two positions offensively with good players.

 

They'll be cheap for 6 years. What the Twins budget looks like now isn't all that important really.

 

Money has never been my issue with this. It was the guaranteed contracts/spots that is my issue. What Meyer/Sano/Buxton/Kepler/Rosario/Arcia all represent is a wave of cheap, young, impact players. Regardless of what budget space you have it is ALWAYS good to be getting high quality play from cheap players.

[Willihammer]

Phew. Welp, I'm just glad the Braves got him.

 

Bullet. Dodged.

[Oxtung]

They'll be cheap for 6 years. What the Twins budget looks like now isn't all that important really.

 

Money has never been my issue with this. It was the guaranteed contracts/spots that is my issue. What Meyer/Sano/Buxton/Kepler/Rosario/Arcia all represent is a wave of cheap, young, impact players. Regardless of what budget space you have it is ALWAYS good to be getting high quality play from cheap players.

 

I think your "blocking" argument has some legs. Obviously it is subjective so people will fall on both sides. I was just responding to the idea that money should be any part of this conversation. If this was 1999, you have some points. But it's not and the Twins are awash with unspent cash.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

So I think cost was a factor. I think 30$ million is a lot of money even for a baseball ownership. What diehard said a while back: Twins just didn't think Santana was worth what he was asking, Twins had already awarded two contracts like that this offseason, and many people want to see what happens with the battle for the fifth rotation spot. I can live with all of that.

 

Gibson was out for about a week as he became a new daddy! (congrats to Kyle and Elizabeth by the way) but he'll come back with a chance to pitch himself into the rotation now.

[TheLeviathan]

I think your "blocking" argument has some legs. Obviously it is subjective so people will fall on both sides. I was just responding to the idea that money should be any part of this conversation. If this was 1999, you have some points. But it's not and the Twins are awash with unspent cash.

 

Part of it is the comp pick being attached. If that wasn't there the 1 year deals would make a ton of sense but that's not the situation here.

[Guest USAFChief]

Part of it is the comp pick being attached. If that wasn't there the 1 year deals would make a ton of sense but that's not the situation here.

That's a good point and one I concur with. I feel the same about Drew and Morales. I would like them signed, but not for one year.

[cmathewson]

Part of my unease about adding more pitching depth is my admiration for Gibson. I have not seen that much movement on a fastball at that velocity since Scott Erickson. And I think he has a better slider than Erickson ever had. I think he was squeezed a lot last year and changed his approach to get more strikes called, which made him more hittable. This time around, I look for him to be the type of guy to get a lot of ground balls and a lot of strikeouts.

[tobi0040]

Part of my unease about adding more pitching depth is my admiration for Gibson. I have not seen that much movement on a fastball at that velocity since Scott Erickson. And I think he has a better slider than Erickson ever had. I think he was squeezed a lot last year and changed his approach to get more strikes called, which made him more hittable. This time around, I look for him to be the type of guy to get a lot of ground balls and a lot of strikeouts.

 

I am also very high on Gibson. I don't get why everyone is so down on this guy. He was a top 5 or 10 pick pre-injury concern. He falls to us, we get him and at 22 he goes from high A to AAA in one year with a sub 3.00 ERA. Then the next year he is not right and his numbers are shaky, then he needs TJ. Is out a year and half. He puts up a 2.92 ERA in 151 IP in AAA, then after 10 starts (5-6 very bad starts) we lump him into the same conversation as Diamond, Worley, etc.

[TheLeviathan]

Then he gets lumped into the same conversation as Diamond, Worley, etc.

 

Well...what do they all have in common? One spot to fight for. I wish he had a spot regardless but all the dialogue from the Twins indicate he's not even in the running for that spot.

 

It's not that people are down on him, it's that he'll be a Red Wing and not a Twin to start this season. That's part of the problem.

[tobi0040]

The O's dont' have tons of money, but the Jays aren't exactly cash strapped... and yet they didn't sign Santana. Why would they give up something of value for KC?

 

I think Levi is right here. Pelfrey won't go at the deadline and KC won't go until then.

 

I cited 3 scenario's for a KC trade:

 

1) A team like the Blue Jays or Orioles

 

2) A contender adding depth and using him as a long reliever and insurance policy

 

3) A team that has an injury between now and April 1

 

In scenario 1, I think the Blue Jays would be a near lock to take him. The issue with them is nobody wants to sign there and play in Toronto (a trade would be ideal then). Ervin had 1/14 on the table for days and took the same thing from Atlanta within minutes. A story I read showed how upset the Blue Jays GM was and how up a creek they are as their 4th and 5th starters are huge question marks.

 

In scenario 2, it is much easier to add a $5M insurance policy (KC) to your bullpen than it is to add a $12 - $14M insurance policy (Ervin).

 

In scenario 3, I know we had one pitcher on the market and one team had an injury and the deal was done in the same day. Now no more pitchers exist. CC was throwing at 88 mph and got rocked, Garza has a 19.06 ERA so far....are they hurt? I am guessing a few good pitchers get hurt in the next two weeks. If not we could go into the first few weeks of the year.

 

My read is we could move KC now, but think we can get more on July 31st. Gibson will start in AAA and get confidence and Meyer won't be up until June. so I don't think the urgency is there for the Twins.

[tobi0040]

Well...what do they all have in common? One spot to fight for. I wish he had a spot regardless but all the dialogue from the Twins indicate he's not even in the running for that spot.

 

It's not that people are down on him, it's that he'll be a Red Wing and not a Twin to start this season. That's part of the problem.

 

In the numerous "blocking" discussions. Gibson is lumped into the same conversation as the others. The Twins could care less about blocking Worley or Diamond.

 

He is a level above these guys.

[TheLeviathan]

I'd also like to suggest that this is enlightening to the conversation:

 

http://grantland.com/features/mlb-prospect-philosophies-twins-red-sox-rays-marlins/

 

Antony said it himself about the two big prospects, but I think it speaks to the organization's approach as a whole.